In our last blogs, we have looked at the reasons for considering Data Science as a career option, reasons for the boom and why are companies investing heavily in it. Now let us look at who should take this up as a career option, how are the investments, and what Return on Investment it can give. 

The first question is “Who Should take this up as a career option”  - The simple answer is anyone, who has an interest in the field of statistics, coding, and analyzing the data to derive insights can look forward in this field. I am amused to see the exponential influx of people into this field. This field because of the huge demand welcomes freshers along with experienced personnel. As I said anyone, with the minimum qualification requirements, ideally engineering, statistics, mathematics, computer science, economics graduates, MBA professionals can take this as a career option. This eligibility criteria, however, depends on the course curriculum and the institutes offering the course. Most institutes go for a basic screening with basic knowledge of the above-said fields.

In the present day scenario in India, the course is available in both the modules i.e. offline module as well as an online module. In the offline module, top institutes in India are providing full-time as well as part-time courses in Data Science, Data Analytics, Business Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence. Among the top IIMs, IIM Calcutta and IIM Bangalore are providing Business Analytics and Intelligence programs. Apart from them, other IIMs like IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Ranchi, IIM Rohtak have also started providing certificate programs for the same, although that is through collaboration with many online platforms that have got expertise in these domains. Other top colleges, offering similar courses are Praxis Business School and Great Lakes Institute Of Management, with some exceptional records in terms of delivering the core ideas of Data Science as well as providing good support for placements. These are some of the top colleges but there are many, which we can deep dive better while taking a career decision. Talking about the online platforms, like Simplilearn, Data Trained, etc. are coming up as well, which are also providing data science courses for freshers as well as working professionals.

Talking about the investment for the course, for the offline module, the investments vary from 4L to 10L, with a financial aid facility available at most of the institutions. In the online modules, the complete course somewhat costs between 50k to 2L, varies from platform to platform.

The most important thing at the end, what is the Return on Investment? If we refer to Glassdoor, the average salary offered by some top corporates to Data Scientist areas (all values in INR): 

Reliance Jio : 12,51,069 ; Embibe : 13,77,597 ; Microsoft : 16,73,507 ; Amazon : 13,73,954

Also, with experience, it varies a lot. From my personal experience, I can say, I have seen people getting a 200-300% hike over the current salary either after completing the course or making a switch to a new firm. This is the scope that Data Science provides financially and opens up wide horizons.

Till now, I have been focusing on only one designation. There are many designations actually like Machine Learning Engineer, Data Analyst, Application Architect, etc. In India, the average salary of an Application Architect is around INR 20,00,000.

Not only financially, but it also gives a direction for an individual to think about the market, consumers, what can be the best offerings, what is there which can benefit both consumers/customers as well as the firm.

This is a field of fields to look out for in this decade. With time, the need for Data Scientists will increase as we as consumers are very different, and with time options are also increasing, leading to more varied consumer behavior. Some might like brown bread and some might prefer white ones. Giving this example to make my readers realize that when there is so much raw data about how much percent of the consumer prefers what kind of a daily staple that is bread, I would like the readers to explore and think of what all products we use in our daily lives and the relative opportunity that remains hidden for a data analyst, so in the end, it is all about Data for a company to grow its business and consumer satisfaction level.